YOUR recent newspaper article regarding claims against Bolton Council for pothole damage stated that the information supplied by the authority in response to your Freedom of Information request was related specifically to vehicle damage claims only.

This assertion was reported incorrectly as the information requested under the above FOI request also included other incidents (personal injury) along with any legal costs as was originally requested.

It should also be noted that the information provided included payments associated with land under the ownership of Bolton Council (private roads managed by Corporate Property) and not just on adopted public highway.

This is borne out by the substantial compensation payment for an incident in Raikes Lane on a private section involving a pothole. The other two compensation payments specifically referred to in the newspaper article, whilst associated with the adopted public highway, were both pedestrian injury claims.

Compensation claims and payments have steadily reduced over recent years as our highway safety inspection regime has increased and our exhaustive claims investigation process undertaken by our inspectors in respect of all highway related claims.

We have seen however, a sudden spike over the past financial year in terms of the number of pothole-related claims which can be associated with the cumulative impact of last winter’s severe weather.

Our gritting teams last winter were called up to two or three times most nights and it is this activity that has had a direct correlation on the increase incidence of potholes.

To emphasis these points the list below shows a substantial improvement and reduction of claims over the past three municipal years.

Claim Payments (financial years):

2013/14 = £102,575.20

2014/15 = £133,332.00

2015/16 = £ 20,600.00

2016/17 = £ 9,731.00

2017/18 = £ 16,940.00

Cllr David Chadwick

Executive Cabinet Member Highways and Transport